Since the 1930's US Dustbowl that was downwind from the worlds's
first massive oil fields discovery/delveopment (Pithole
being a mere pittance) each explosive exploration has
caused downwind droughts with economic, social and political chaos.
The latest and greatest is world terrorism. Central Asia
is seasonally buffeted from oil-drought winds from two sources:
China's Permian Basin
and the Caspian Sea. (China's massive western oil fields
occupy most of the brown area of the above right map.) The
multi-national droughts in Central Asia have the
harbingers of border strife over water rights: "Kazakstan
accuses China of depriving it of vital water supplies"
010419

The Caspian Sea's development is summarized in the above graph
and following articles which show a time correlation,
like the other major oil fields and drought areas as
well as the mode of the modern black plague:
flaring natural gas.

"The Caspian Sea region contains the third largest reserve of oil and natural
gas in the world, behind the Gulf region and Siberia ....
Another problem is the flaring ofnatural gas; about 4.5 million cubic meters a day.
American-EDU

"Kazakh gas production has been hampered by the lack of infrastructure, with
many oil producers flaring the gas instead of using
it." DOE report 2000
April

"The Caspian Sea region is important to world markets because it has large
oil and gas reserves that are only now beginning to be fully developed.
Developing these resources has resulted in competition both between companies
to get the contracts to develop this potential, and between nations to determine
the final export routes."
2000, June, DOE Report:

"While the world's attention is focused on war in Afghanistan, three successive
years of severe drought have created conditions for a famine which is threatening
neighbouring Central Asian countries."

Triggered by the lowest rainfall in living memory, vast tracts of Iran,
Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Tajikistan are being reduced to desert as the water
table sinks, long-established wells dry up and herds of livestock perish.

The droughts in Central Asia are summarized in the following
headlines and text.

"In Asia, A Third Year Of Drought. Severe Food Shortages Caused By Lack Of
Water.Afghanistan Among Countries Suffering Most."
010928AP

"We don't want to plant poppy, but we have no choice," said Mohammed, 60,
munching a handful of tender, dandelion-like poppy shoots. "There is so little
water that the wheat won't grow well, and cotton prices have fallen by half.
But with poppy, we can get 50 times the money. Everyone is starting to grow
it again." .... the deep wells dug by wealthier farmers last year have also
run dry.
020121

Azerbaijan

Iran

"Iran is experiencing the third consecutive year of extreme drought. Ninety
percent of the urban, rural, and nomadic populations are being severely
affected." 010710

"A severe drought, now in its third year, has killed about 15,000 head of
livestock since March in northeast Iran .... A recent U.N. report described
the drought as the worst to hit Iran for 30 years and estimated that it had
caused damage worth $2.6 billion."
CNN/Reuters 2001-07-15

"The drought that has devastated southeastern Iran and Afghanistan has wreaked
its own peculiar havoc on Isfahan, in north-central Iran. For two years,
its river has been bone dry, except for brief periods when man or nature
managed to make the water flow again. Where once water beckoned, there is
only a sandy, rocky plain stretching as far as the eye can bear to look."
NYT 2001-12-05

Kazakhstan

"Kazakstan accuses China of depriving it of vital water supplies"
010419

"Successive crop failures have left 1 million people in Tajikistan in need
of urgent food aid, the International Red Cross ....'We have seen children
digging among rat holes in wheat fields, searching for grain hoarded by the
rodents for the winter,' said Roger Bracke, a Red Cross official who recently
headed a mission to Tajikistan ... the crisis was caused by a shortfall of
grain, caused by two years of drought and worsened by a dilapidated irrigation
system." WashPost
2001-08-21

"Tajikistan, considered the poorest of the republics that formed part of
the Soviet Union until 1991, faces its fourth consecutive year of drought"
010821.

"The federation has appealed for an additional $602,000 to help neighboring
Uzbekistan, which is also hit by a drought and food crisis."
WashPost 2001-08-21

The Caspian sea is no exception to the rule.

The above analysis was completed before the World Trade Center
Terrorism. Would it have happened without the modern black plague
of oil? Oil provided the money for Osama Bin Laden to traipse from
drought-stricken country to drought-stricken country recruiting victims of
upwind oil fields: Yemen, Sudan, Kenya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. Each
act of terrorism funded by oil dollars and fueled by oil droughts increases
the timistic losses of each barrel of oil.